The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-12-20
THE BEAUTIFUL,
As Developed by the Artist Dig
cling i'm the Mines of Poet
ny and Song.

proach, invention seems to exhaust
itself in producing new forms of
beauty to catch the popular taste
and of course the popular pocket
book and yet year after year some
thing new is discovered, some artistic
touch is given, some new idea is
evolved and something is added to the
stores of rare illustration, rare illumin.
alton and rare decoration.
Take, for instance, the manner in
which the works of popular poets are
given to the public, this year especi-
ally, not the poems of Tennyson,
Longfellow and others of like fame
merely, although these, too, are being
more and more beautifully bound,
more and more beautifully illustrated,
but the familiar poems which we long
have known, but failed to give the
place they so heartily deserved be-
cause of the more potent influence of
their pretentiOus neighbors. What,
indeed, can be more beautiful than
that little poem of the heart, Crock
me to sleep mother" with its illustra.
tons, which seem to show the world
weary woman as we never saw her
before, and somehow sends the
plant,
Backward, turn backward, oh tide Of the
years;
I am SO weary of toll and of tears,
Toll without recompense, tears all in
vain,
Take them and give me my childhood
again,
quivering down into the heart with
peculiar familiarity which seems to
have right there, because many
among us have sent forth the same
voiceless cry without the ability to
put it in words.
Then again there is Felicia He
mans immortal song, "The Landing of
the Pilgrim Fathers" which this year
is so charmingly illustrated that it is
hard to tell where the poet leaves of
and the artist begins. Incidentally it
may be stated that there never was
more beautiful sentiment, there never
was a nobler story told in nobler
words, and it is peculiarly fitting that
in the Christmas season of 1887, when
the progress of the time is so well ex-
emplifed, when the great rich harvest
is being reaped of the seed sown
where
"The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock bound coast,
And the woods against stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed.
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters Ger,
When band of exiles moves their bark
On the wild New England shore"
Think of it ; now when thousands
and tens of thousands, aye, and mil.
lions are scattered over this wonderful
land of ours, where the wheels of
commerce with their spokes of silver
and their hubs of gold, roll unceasing-
ly to and fro /; where great cities with
their throbbing hearts and their eager
strain for new worlds to conquer. stand
by the ripping rivers and the sound
ing sea, then, there was 'rock bound
cost" and
The ocean eagle scared
From bis nest by the white waves foam
And the rocking pines of the forest
roared,
This was their welcome home.
lis well indeel that art has so
much to beautify, that roses so exgui-
site that they seem to nestle to the
touch with a living lovliness, have
been grouped about this poem, which
like 1.-The Battle hymn of the Repub-
lie" was not born to die, because the
heart of the true American responds
with notes of wOndrous sweetness,
and because as nation, there is a
gratitude which has as its shrine that
little handful of devoted men and
women who
Left unstained, what there they found
Freedom to worship God"
"Idyls and pastorals" are among
the holiday gems this year, and Celia
Thaxter sweeter than ever, comes as
an old friend to our hearts and homes
with her work illustrated in such an
exquisite manner. that the eyes are
toasted in merely CHANGING through it
There is something so homelike in thu
Illustration of a young girl simply at
tired carrying we'll filled apron and
scattering grain to the doves which
cuddle about her feet,
$50 dainty 6ne asd clean,
without speck
Lustrous as changing silk from
Lyons looms"
that it brings content into our lives